


Perks

by bealeciphers



Category: The Flash (Comics), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, One Shot, comic-verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 11:05:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3894040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bealeciphers/pseuds/bealeciphers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Cold picks Barry up from the station for a date</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perks

**Author's Note:**

> this was a drabble prompt posted to my tumblr; thanks anon-person :)

Being Lex Luthor’s bodyguard certainly had its perks. The money. Fame. Working with the Justice League. Working with the _Flash_. 

It was interesting being on the same team as Barry, suddenly their cat and mouse dynamic was cut off leaving whatever-they-were up in the air. Before this they’d spent long nights chasing each other, Len coming up with harder and more complicated crimes to frustrate him and watching Barry jump through all his hoops, expertly throwing aside Len’s work with a grin on his face. It was fun; who didn’t like to play cops and robbers?

But then the Justice League. And suddenly the name Captain Cold was synonymous with heroism and celebrity and Leonard Snart was thrust into this unfamiliar world where kids asked for his autograph and Wonder Woman called him to help deal with alien invasions. He didn’t like it, Len had been a wanted man before he was an adult and he had never even learned to function on the right side of the law.

But there were perks: he could stride into the Central City Police Department without being arrested and no one could do a thing about it. 

“Good morning,” Len said as he strode forward toward the secretary officer. “Should I sign in?“ 

The police officer sitting behind the glass secretary border stared up at him with an open mouth. "Um…” He said, blinking. Then he pushed the visitors sheet under the glass. “Pens are on the side.”

Len had to set the paper bag in his hands down to do it. As he signed in he made sure to write ‘Leonard Snart’ in the largest, most obnoxious letters he could. 

Yeah, this was fun. 

“Um…” The secretary officer turned his face away, looking for some other person who was not there. He seemed helpless, a bit afraid. “Reason for visit?”

“Visiting a friend,” Len told him. 

_‘I’ll see you after work’,_ Barry had texted. A beautiful, amazing, aggravatingly ambiguous series of letters and words. And then Barry hadn’t left the station, but Len knew the speedster got off at six so Barry had to be pulling overtime because it was nearing eight at night by now. Len had grown impatient. 

_'What do we do about 'us’ now, Flash?’  
_

_'I’ll see you after work’_

Rushed kisses after jobs, angry sex over stolen goods, sweet slow fucking when Barry came back to him, always in the uniforms, always silent as neither of them dared to talk to break whatever moment was happening, and it was always, always confusing. Because what was this? Just another failed romance for Len to add to a pile of things that had never worked out? Barry Allen was too good and noble to spend his time with Captain Cold, but fuck all if Len wasn’t used to taking things that shouldn’t be his. 

He picked up the bag as he walked forward, calm and pleased with himself every time an officer gave him a double take. As Len walked into the main lobby of the police station he saw a woman grabbing for her gun. Another officer shook his head and the woman put the gun away. 

He could handle the stares. It wasn’t important. Len might as well enjoy the confused fame of being a reformed (even if he wasn’t _reformed_ … not really) member of the Justice League.

What he couldn’t handle was not knowing if Barry’s text was a yes or a no.  He didn’t like not knowing. 

_'What do we do about 'us’ now, Flash?’  
_

_'I’ll see you after work’_

Len walked up the stairs slowly, knowing Barry’s office was with the other science labs at the top floor. Not knowing what the Flash was thinking made Len’s skin crawl. 

An officer walked down the stairs, his gaze fixed on Len. “Looking for a reason,” the officer mumbled as he walked by him, “I’m just looking for a reason.”

“That attitude’s the reason you people are almost out of a job, you know,” Len called down to the man. The officer gave him a glare that could curdle Coca-Cola. Len smirked at him and then continued up the stairs. 

It was Len’s opinion that superheroes would make police forces extinct in the next generation, which was an idea he quite enjoyed. _Huh_ , Len thought as he reached the top of the stairs and automatically turned right, _am I a superhero now?_ The idea was so funny he almost burst out laughing. 

Len hid his smile with his hand. It wasn’t too long walking down the hallway that he passed a door with the plaque, 'Bartholomew Allen, Sr. Forensic Scientist’. Len hadn’t known Barry’d been promoted and he looked at the plaque for a moment.

_'What do we do about 'us’ now, Flash?’  
_

_'I’ll see you after work’_

“You caused a commotion,” yelled a voice from inside of the room. 

Len could recognize Barry’s voice anywhere, inside or outside the mask. “I sent you a text not too long ago,” Len said as he stepped into the room. 

Len walked into a wide open floor space, a large lab desk set up by a window near a chalkboard and on the sides of the walls were file cabinets. 

At the desk, hunched over a microscope with his hand holding a pen, writing something down, was Barry Allen. He was even wearing a lab coat. It was adorable. 

“I replied to your text,” Barry said, his voice petulant. He didn’t move at all from his position. 

Well, at least Len knew Barry had been working overtime. “You didn’t say much,” Len told him. 

“ _You_ didn’t tell me Lex Luthor hired you to be his bodyguard,” Barry said angrily with his eyes still pressed into the microscope. 

Len moved closer until Barry was close enough to reach out and touch, but instead he crossed his arms and stood still. It was hard not to remember the way Barry’s skin felt under his fingers when he vibrated- how the two of them fit together- how the Flash’s desperate kisses and touches burned in Len’s skin for days and days afterward. Yeah, Len was hooked. 

He had a reputation for doing this, falling in love the wrong way with the wrong people. 

“I didn’t know Luthor was going to hire me. And after that I was a little busy getting a handle on things.” Len frowned at the back if Barry’s head. “Do you plan on looking at me?”

Barry pointed with his pen to an eggtimer on his desk. “Not until the serum finishes metabolizing in the blood.”

“ _Flash_ work, not police, I take it?”

“Yep,” Barry said. The pen went back to scratching notes. “I heard you were a member of the Justice League from Hal, and he was warning me about you.”

“That’s true. We have a long history of being enemies,” Len grinned. 

“We have a long history, _period_ ,” Barry frowned into the microscope, “I’d have thought you would call.”

“I don’t know what I am to you, Scarlet, I wasn’t going to send you a message just to get kicked to the curb.” Len’s gaze traveled to the room then, looking at the scientific notes piles over the clipboard, the scores of paperwork, and the view of the city from the window. 

“What does that mean? I think it’s pretty clear what we are,” Barry said, his tone angry. 

“Not really. We fight, we dance, I turn the city into evil Santa’s Village and you press the magic button to save Christmas, it doesn’t exactly make sense to me. We played this game together for a long time.” Len scratched the side of his jaw. 

Not having stubble was weird. Lex Luthor had been pretty insistent on it, however, something about managing appearances. Len _had_ spent quite a long portion of his career in a blue eskimo outfit, but hell, that was _the early days_ ; it was just what people did. People were corny way back when they were first figuring out the heroes vs. villains game; Len had adored those days. 

Especially the way the Flash had _got_ it. That it was a game. That they could play cat and mouse and still go to sleep at night with each other. 

Yet now the world was complicated. _Justice League._

“I could quit, you know,” Len offered with a shrug. 

Barry’s body jerked like he had to fight to keep himself from sitting up. “Quit the Justice League?!” He said loudly before he remembered they were in the police station. “Why?”

“If it makes things between us too complicated,” Len explained. 

“Are you kidding? For the first time you and I make sense,” Barry said, his voice urgent, “for the first time we… you don’t have to rob a bank as freaking foreplay- you and I could… we can actually…” Barry swallowed. 

Len stepped forward, boots dragging on the floor. He reached his gloved hand up to drag over the back of Barry’s neck. “And?”

“I…” Barry visibly shuddered under his touch. “You and I were always… a possibility, something I couldn’t tell anyone-”

“To be fair, you superheroes are master liars,” Len teased, “every last one of you. Its the supervillains who are honest.”

“You’re a superhero now, you know,” Barry said quietly.

“I know. I just walked into a police station without handcuffs on. I could even go bowling, go to a nice restaurant, see a movie…” Len let his voice fade out as his hand settled on the back of Barry’s neck. 

Barry swallowed and Len could feel it under his palm. Barry’s hand had stalled over the notepad. “Did you come by to ask me for dinner?”

“We’ve never gone on a date. We’ve known each other for years,” Len pointed out. 

“You’ve been an asshole for years,” Barry grinned into the microscope. 

“Bah,” Len scoffed playfully. He stepped closer against Barry’s chair until he was almost touching him. “I was a damn good nemesis.”

“Hal is going to think this is so weird,” Barry chuckled under his breath. 

“What? That you found a handsome, Justice League superhero to take you bowling?” Len joked, “Or the whole 'used to be my nemesis’ thing? Do you think now I’ll get to tell the story about when you and I were in the Central City Museum of Natural History and I was stealing the fossil of the nothosaur-”

Barry blushed from his neck to his ears. It was adorable. “God, you will not tell anyone that story. Never. In a thousand years.”

“You liked the thing I did with my tongue, I remember… so much so that I have a _lovely_ little nothosaur fossil in my new Lexcorp office,” Len’s hand stroked through Barry’s hair. 

“You distracted me,” Barry said through clenched teeth, blushing furiously. 

“I could repeat the performance after bowling and a movie,” Len offered. 

There was a beeping noise. Len glanced up to see the clock on the egg timer turning 00:00 before he was suddenly pushed to the floor. A heavy weight dropped onto his chest, knocking the wind out of him, and then Barry Allen’s lips were on top of his own pulling Len into a fierce kiss. 

“I have to,” Barry said against Len’s mouth and then Len turned his head, pulling Barry in deeper until their teeth clacked together. He brushed his tongue over Barry’s lips and- Barry pulled back, taking short sharp breaths. 

He looked amazing, face flashed, hair wild, lips slightly red from contact. “I have to,” Barry said softly, eyes wide, “text Hal that the serum works. Let me grab my coat and then we can go back to my place-”

“No,” Len said instantly. He reached out and grabbed Barry’s shoulder, looking straight into the other man’s eyes. “That’s what we always do. If you want us to… 'make sense’ or whatever, we are going _out_.”

Barry looked at Len blankly for a long moment and then a slow smile crept across his face. “A _date_ ,” Barry said.

“Yes, Barry Allen, a date.”

In a flash, Barry’s lips were pressed onto Len’s in a chaste kiss and then Barry was jumping off of him. “Let me get my coat!” Barry said eagerly. 

Len sat up, watching Barry moving to his coat and pull out his phone to send a lightning fast text to the Green Lantern. _Well,_ Len thought with a smug smile, _I think I’ll get used to being in the Justice League._


End file.
